John Prine

The genius of John Prine can be distilled with this line from "The Late John Garfield Blues": "Two men were standing upon a bridge/One jumped and screamed, 'You lose!'" At 65-years-sardonic he shows few signs of checking out. Prine has long since shrugged off squamous cell cancer and has soldiered on writing songs of joy and misery, family and friendship, each delivered in a voice that goes down like chicory coffee, heavy on the gravelly grinds. His greatest songs are ripe with a disarming, salty-sweet wit; life and death, love and politics are cosmic jokes to Prine. That's what makes him the true poet of the 99 percent. If we didn't laugh, we'd cry, so sing along with him one more time.